if?8 





Book_ 



5 



SPEECH 



GEBBIT SMITH, 



THE COUNTRY, 



DELIVERED AT 



THE COOPER INSTITUTE, 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 31, 1862. 



NEW YORK: 
BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTER 

PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE, OPPOSITE CITY HALL. 

1862. 



~4 5fc 



SPEECH OF GERRTT SMITH, 



t**« 



Will our nation be saved ? I d*> not ask whetber 
it will.be saved from being destroyed by this Re- 
bellion, but whether it will be saved from its hard 
heart — from its heart to oppress and enslave. That 
heart, and not the Rebellion, is the disease of which 
the nation is dying. The Rebellion is but one of the 
symptoms of the disease, and is ao more to be con- 
founded with the disease than is coughing with con- 
aamption. 

The Rebellion is not only not our disease; bat 
horrible as it is, it is not so much as the worst symp- 
tom of it. The endeavor two years since to make 
peace between the North and the South at the fur- 
ther expense of the crashed and innocent negroes 
Was a far worse symptom. Nay, in that endeavor — 
in that climax of meunness and malignity — is to be 
eeen the very worst of all the symptoms. " But as 
for these sheep, what had they done 7" But as for 
these harmless and helpless negroes, what had they 
done, that this expeuae also should fall upon them ? 
Another symptom of the disease preying upon the 
•vitals of this nation was the outrages of the Slave 
Power in Kansas. The Fugitive Slave Act was 
another. The Missouri Compromise and its Repeal 
were each of them sucti a symptom. The cruel and 
diabolical expulsion of the Indians to make more 
room for Slavery was another. So too was there 
another in the meau and murderous War for the 
eame foul purpose against unoffending Mexico. 

A heart so hard as to hold millions and fresh mil- 
lions in Slavery — in i hat condition where they are 
denied all right to wife and husband and children 
and knowledge and wages, and where body and 
mind and soul all lie at the absolute disposal of an 
irresponsible despouem — this, and this alone, is the 
disease of which our nation is dying. Will it be 
cured ? Not soon, I fear. Repentance is the only 
remedy. The Abolitionists, beginning with William 
Lloyd Garrison, have been prescribing it for more 
than thirty years. But the nation has constantly 
refused to try it: and even now, in the midst of her 
terrible sufferings from the disease, she persists in 
refusing to try it. 

I admit, that there is increasing ground to hope 
that the Rebellion will be put down. 1 say this too, 
notwithstanding the recent disaster at Fredericks- 
burg. For 1 see nothing in it to discourage us. On 
the contrary I find much encouragement in the de- 
termination and daring displayed by our brave army. 



With here and there a splendid exception, determi- 



nation and daring have been our essential lack all 
the way through the War, whilst of indecision and 
delay, hesitancy and shrinking we have constantly 
had a ruinous abundance. I cannot advert to the 
battle of Fredericksburg without saying out of a 
grateful heart : All honor to our valiant soldiers 
who fought and fell in it; and all honor to our val- 
iant soldiers, who fought by their side and survive 
them! As said Tennyson of the immortal six hun- 
dred in the Crimean War, so say I of these our im- 
mortal ones: 

" When can their glory fade? " 

I admitted the better prospect for patting down the 
Rebellion. But let us remember that it may lfe put 
down, and still the national disease be left uncured. 
I believe that our Government is at last convinced 
that its hesitating and inefficient prosecution of the 
War has failed to conciliate either the Southern lead- 
ers or their allies among the Northern Democratic 
leaders. I believe it now sees that only by an un- 
conditional and vigorous prosecution of the War can 
it command the respect, or inspire the dread, or dis- 
courage the endeavors, or win the good will of either 
of these classes of leaders. In a word, the Govern- 
ment is, I trust, at last resolved to put down the 
Rebellion, cost what it may to put it down. I be- 
lieve, too, that none of our Generals will any longer 
show more concern for the cause of the enemy than 
for our own cause. I believe that none of them will 
any longer, by pledging themselves to put down ser- 
vile insurrections, assure the Rebels of the continued 
safety of their families, I believe that none of them 
will any longer feel bound to provide guards for 
Rebel homes, or to be so concerned to supply the 
South with food as to seize and return to her fields 
the laborers who had absconded from them. I be- 
lieve that none of them will any longer, either in 
these or other ways, virtually tell the Rebels that, 
so far from a large share of them being needed to 
stay behind for the protection of their homes or the 
production of their crops, they can every one of them 
be spared to come out to shoot our soldiers and send 
distress into our families. Oh, had this been so at 
the beginning of the War, then should we, ere this, 
have seen the end of the War ! Oh, had we, when 
the Rebels first struck at the life of the nation, in- 
stantly struck back at their life by proclaiming liberty 
to the slaves, then had our naion been now safe, 
and tens of thousands of her families escaped their . 
sorrow ! The excuse for this omission is, that the 
people were not then prepared to have this decisive 
blow struck. But they were. Their right feeling 
was then at high tide; and just hecause it was not 
then availed of, it has been ebbing away ever since. 
Ours ia the only nation on the face of the earth that, 



III JS&OQ 

Cornell 



> in such circumstances, would not have instantly 

struck back with its hardest and deadliest blow. 

'^"^There are mobs so tame and timid that you can scat- 

-ter them by shooting over their heads or at their 

H leo-s. But the very first shots into this mad Southern 

» mob should have been aimed at the head and the 

_^-iheart. Hence the great Emancipation gun, which 

always aims its shots at the vitals, should have been 

*> brought out at the very beginning. 

i Yes I believe that the prospect of putting 
-"■ down' the Kebellion is much improved. The 
folly of trying to put it down, and of try- 
ing at the Bame time to keep up Slavery, 
is now apparent. The madness of refusing to 
march out our armies against the Rebellion, and 
the madness of refusing to vote against it, save on 
the condition in ei< her case that Slavery shall be 
preserved, no candid man any longer denies. la 
nothing 1 have said do I mean to countenance tue 
charge that our Pro-Slavery Generals are traitors. 
I see no more reason for calling Gen. McClellan a 
traitor than for caliiug Gen. Scott one, or Gov. 
Seward one. or the President one. They are all op- 
nosed to the Kebellion, and would all have it put 
down. Thev all love their country aud their whole 
country, and would be very sad at seeing it divided. 
It is trua that there was a time when they were all 
opposed to an uncompromising and unconditional 
coercion of the Rebels. His famous letter of March 
3 1861, to Goy. Seward, as also his choice of Gen. 
McClellan to be his successor, proves that Gen. 
Scott was opposed to it. Gov. Seward was 
also as is manifest from his correspondence 
with Mr. Adams aud from other source*. It 
•was bv compromises and conditions, by burdeus 
ea-y to' be borne by both the Northern and tne South- 
ern whites, because all to be laid on the shouldeis 
of the blacks; it was by the bloodless and winning 
rhetoric of diplomacy; and it was not by any stern 
and compulsorv proceesses, that he expected to be 
able to reduce"the lite of the Rebellion to the short 
period of sixty or ninety days, i confess that I did 
myself believe that the Rebellion would be short. 
But it was only because I was so credulous as to be- 
lieve, that the outrage would turn the people ot the 
North into Abolitionists ajd into dead.y enemies of 
that system, which is at once tne cause of the Rebel- 
lion aud the great essential *no indispensable means 
of sustaining it. 1 said that the President, as well 
us those otuer gentlemen, was opposed to such a 
coercion of the Rebels. For surely had there not been 
harmony between himself aud them at a point so im- 
portant, he would have preferred that others should 
occupy their places. Tnere can be no reasonable 
doubt that all of them believed that the proper and 
effectual way to overcome the Rebellion was faith- 
fully to probecute the compound purpose ol restoring 
the Countrv, the Constitution, and Slavery to their 
condition b'ci'ore the Rebellion, save only that felave- 
ry was to have extended territory aud even new Con- 
stitutional advantages. Doubtless had they to. eseen 
the vast dimensions, the cetermined and terrible 
spirit of the Kebellion, they would have known that 
it could be put down onlv by the simple purpose ot 
putting it down, and not possibly by blending any 
other puruoses with it. I trust that they all now 
see, that such a Rebellion can be put down only by 
unconditionally aiming to put it do-vn— onlv by 
aiming to put it down, come what will ot 
Slavery or the Constitution, aye, or even ot 
the Country. I say even of the Country. I speak 
considerately. For as the father is to put down the 
child who revolts against his authority, and to do so 
without at all weighing the question whether he 
shall therebv break up or save his family ; so Gov- 
ernment is to put down a gang of Slavery-frenzied 
and Satan-inspired Rebels, even though to do so 



shall cost its every shilling and every acre, its last 
strength and last credit. Notwithstanding my abnn 
dant advocacv for a quarter of a century of the Con- 
stitution and" the whole Constitution, I do not like 
to have our War called a War for the Constitution. — 
And I would rather not have it called a War for the 
Country. Call it rather a War to put down the Reb- 
els—to put them down Constitution or no Constitu- 
tion, Country or no Country- Say you this is a reck- 
less-spirit? Nevertheless it is only t>y this spirit that 
vou can conquer— nay, only by this spirst that you 
can save either Constitution or Country. Upon the 
Divine principle, that "he who loses his lile shall 
save it," the people who are so noble as to respond 
to calls still more commanding thau the high duty of 
preserving Country and Const it mi >u, shall have, in 
return for their sublime devotion, both Country and 
Constitution vouchsafed to them. Upon the Divine 
principle of getting all by forsaking all, we lose noth- 
ing if we do what must be done even though it can 
be done but at the eeeming hazard of losing both 
Constitution and Country. 

" Submit or be conquered," is the only alternative 
that Government can offer the Rebels. Government 
can ueither propose nor accept a Compromise. Govern- 
ment can tolerate no intervention , foreign or domestic. 
Foreign intervention it will regard as a _ declaration 
of war, and domestb intervention it will puuith as 
treason. As well might the father I have referred to 
consent to a compromise or an intei vention in the case 
of himself and his revolting child. I repeat that, 
" Submit or be conquered" is our only alternative 
to the Rebels. If we consent to waive it for com- 
promise, intervention, or mediutiou, or to modify it 
in any wise, however slightly, we perish. Our de- 
termination to beat the Rebels must be as strong, 
and, in regard to consequences, as reckless, as is 
theirs to beat ns, or it will be in vain for us even to 
double the number of our regiments and our armed 

This' favorite Democratic idea of holding the 
sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other 
makes quite a prettv picture; and perhaps there are 
Rebellions which pictures cau overcome. But our 
Rebellion is not one of them. To overcome that 
needs stern, uncompromising, unrelenting terms. 

I say farther in regard to r is mistake, into which, 
somauyof our leaders fell at the beginning of the 
War, that the country has no right to complain of it. 
For the countrv, in common wn u these leaders, was 
debauched by'Slavery. In common with them, it 
had been trained to regard Slavery as among all in- 
terests the most sacred — as among tbeai all the su- 
preme The present and the past of our country, 
her policy and traditions, all went to make our Pro- 
Slavery conduct of the war a thug of course. No 
other could reasonably have been expected. Th<* 
country had better confess it— even though to do so 
mi"ht render her still more the world's laughing- 
stock and scorn— that when SI * very, after all her 
other outrages upon her, at last, took up arms against 
her, her poor Slavery-infatuated people were in. no 
more mood and condition to put down the Rebellion 
(the Rebellion being simply Slavery in arms) than 
drunkards would be to put down a whisky insurrec- 
tion. Drunkards cannot fig! I against whisky. Nor 
were we then prepared to fight against Slavery. 
Neither could fight against its conqueror. None ot 
the people are to-dav capable of good service sigainst 
this Pro-Slavery Rebellion < xcept such of them ae 
have succeeded in breaking the strong withes with 
which Slavery had bound t. em, aud as are now no 
longer cowed in its presence. 

God be praised that many of oar leaders and ot 
our people have learaed much in the progress of this 
War. Among the things they have learned 13, that 
this blatant solicitude to save he Constitution is but 



I 

hypocrisy— is but solicitudo to save Slavery. Under 
ail this affected regard for the Constitution, the real 
regard is for Slavery. This using the Constitution 
to block the wheels of war, and thus save Slavery, 
is a crime against the Constitution and the Country, 
which, I trust, will net be perpetrated much longer. 
The Constitution, say the sticklers for Slavery, 
gives the President no right to liberate slaves. I 
admit that ho does not derive it from the Constitu- 
tion alone. It takes both the Constitution and the 
Law of civilized warfare to confer it on him. The 
Constitution makes him the Head of the Army, and 
the Law of civilized warfare authorizes him, as such, 
to strengthen himself and weaken the foe by dis- 

Eosing of slaves, or anything clue that may stand in 
Is way— by turning them, or anything else, to the 
Lest possible account. It is by this Law, and not by 
the Constitution, that he appropriates the buildings, 
horees, cattle, and other property of the enemy. By 
this Law alone is it that he provides for the feeding, 
clothing, and exchanging Of prisoners. By this alone 
that he is forbidden to poison food or wells, or to 
kill prisoners, or sell them into Slavery. I add that, 
as this Law 6hall vary, his rights, being under it, 
must also vary. If it shall ever require the paroling 
of all prisoners, then he must parole all prisoners. 

Let me say that it is solely in the light of this In- 
ternational Law of War, that Congress should have 
seen what would be a proper disposition for our na- 
tion to make of the lands of the Rebels. The Con- 
stitutional limitation of the scope of Attainder had 
nothing at all to do with the ca6e. What a Court 
may do with the house or farm of a person judicially 
convicted of treason is very far from being the 
measure of what the nation may do with the Hund- 
reds of millions of acres belonging to millions of 
liebels. Congress, like the President, must look, 
not at all into the Constitution, but solely into this 
International Law, to learn the penalties of War. 
I say this, not because the Constitution does not 
clothe Congress with ample powers for its share in 
conducting War. For it does. It empowers Con- 
gress to make whatever laws it may deem 
" necessary and proper" for carrying into effect its 
Declaration of War. Thus we see that, whilst the 
President is restricted in his Department bv the Law 
of War, Congress in its Department of "legislation 
has unlimited power. Why I said that Congress 
should look into this International Law to learn the 
penalties of War, was because Congress like the Pres- 
ident should, in making up an opinion of the kind or 
degree of penalty suitable iu a given case, defer and 
conform to the nsagea of the civilized world. Congress 
should not make laws that are in conllict with these 
usages. There should be none such for the Presi- 
dent to execute. 

Nothing can be more absurd or disingenuous than 
this incessant prating of the duty of taking all oui 
Btepi in the War according to the Constitution. 
"With the exception of a few Constitutional starting 
■points, an old almanac would bo as legitimate and 
useful a guide as the Constitution. Iu a war with 
Great Britain we would not allow her, nor would 
ehe allow us, to proceed by a National Constitution. 
Neither would the other nations allow it. We should 
be compelled to proceed by the International Con- 
stitution — by the Law of civilized warfare. So is 
it in our strife with the South — a strife which has [>ut 
on the dimensions and character of a national war, 
and is therefore to be conducted in the main as na- 
tional wars are conducted. 

1 might have said, when speaking of the sources of 
the powers of the Head of the Army, that the vexed 
question whether the President can suspond the writ 
of Habeas Corpus is reduced to no question at all in 
the light of the fact, that the Constitution makes 
tiia, the Head of the Army, and that his right in this 



capacity virtually to suspend the Writ is indispensa- 
ble. I say his right virtually to suspend it. For if 
I could maintain his right literally to suspend it I 
need not. To show his right to override, ignore, and 
nullity the Writ is sutlicient: and that can be showu 
by a mere illustration — by any one of ten thousand 
illustrations. In the inarch of bis Army he meets 
with a dozen traitors, who try to seduce men from 
bis ranks or prevent men from enlisting in them. To 
turn them over to the Civil authority— to its slow, 
uncertain, and perhaps disloyal proceedings — would 
by no means meet the urgent demands oi the case. 
May he not so much as imprison them, and keep them 
imprisoned iu spite of Writs, or aught else ? If he 
may not, then there is no remedy against the ruin of 
both Army and Country. But he clearly may ; and 
as clearly might he thus serve offenders, were they 
perpetrating such mischief, ten, or a hundred, or even 
a thousand miles away from his Army. As clearly, 
too, might he thus serve those who were in other 
ways periling the cause and the life of the nation. 
I add, that it is not from the Constitution alone that he 
[earns his right to do this. He learns it, as he learns 
his right to do the other things mentioned, from the 
Constitution, taken in connection with the usages of 
war. llo finds iu the Constitution that he is the 
Head of the Army. But what he may do iu that ca- 
pacity ho finds in those usages. Let me add further, 
that the Constitution, having made him unqualifiedly 
i he Head of the Army, it there are words iu it which, 
if applied to him as such, would cripple him, they 
are clearly not to bo construed as entitled to such 
application. 

1 >o you say, that the President may abuse his 
right to withstand the Habeas Corpus'} — and that 
he may abuse it to the ruin of inuocent men and 
their families 7 1 admit it. This is one of the fear- 
ful but necessary risks of war, which admonish us 
to be exceedingly slow to get into war. The Head 
ot the Army, be he Emperor, King or President, must, 
for the very life of the nation, have the right iu 
time of war to lay bauds on whom he will, and as 
he will. It is, however, no small Becurity against 
the abuse of this right, that when Peace shall be 
1 restored it may be punished. The Bill, recently in- 
troduced into Congress by Thaddeus Stevens, does 
not go to protect the President in the abuse but only 
in the exercise of the right. The President, no 
more than any other person, is at liberty to perpe- 
trate a wrong under the cover and in the name of a 
conceded right. When we shall again be blei-t with 
Peace, then punish Abraham Lincolu, or whoever 
may be the more responsible one, as severely as you 
\ please for the perversions of his oflice — be it that the 
perversions have Bpruug from ambition, avarice, 
malevolence or whatever form of sellisluiees. 

1 alluded to the President's famous Proclamation. 

I Let me say, in passing, that I am not of the number 

J of those Abolitionists who complain of its heartless- 

| ness. He was not at liberty, iu writing it, to study 

| the interests of the slaves or of any other clans. It 

.> purely a military paper, and anything embodied 

iu it beyond the purpose of helping on the War 

• would have been grossly wrong, and would have 

i.e. n utterly void boih in the eye of the Constitution 

;iid oi the law of war. I readily admit that the 

nt is to aim to do much for the slaves; but 

! not in his military capacity. Iu that capacity, he 

(in help the slaves only incidentally. 

1 adverted to the present more favorable prospect 

of putting down the Rebellion. But, as I added, the 

K< idlion may be put down, and the country never- 

I tbelessbe not saved — or, in other words, its disease be 

I not cured. Nor did I mean that it would necessarily 

id by the abolition of Slavery. Slavery is, 

i.ud from the day of the bombarding of Sumter it" baa 

been, iu a rapid course of extinction. It is highly 



probable that within a very few years it will have 
■wholly disappeared from the country. Very eoon 
there will be no Democratic party in favor of re- 
establishing Slavery. The Democratic Party, which 
will spring up after Slavery is abolished, wilt repre- 
sent a gemine Democracy most widely contrasting 
•with the spurious Democracy of the Party which 
now presumes to call itself Democratic. The present 
Democratic Party cannot survive Slavery. It lives 
in the life of Slavery, and will die iu its death. Full 
well does it know this: and hence its close and 
auxious clingings to Slavery. More than this, when 
Peace shall iiave returned, and the passions of War 
shall have subsided, and the cost of it in life and 
treasure shall have been counted, the people -will be 
so decided against there be.ng another Pro-Slavery 
War that they will leave no door open for it, and 
therefore leave no 6hreds of Slavery in the land. 
They will feel that they have had enough, and more 
than enough, of Slavery. 

Most properly do I speak of this War as a Pro- 
Slavery War. France and England, in their eager- 
ness to believe whatever is to the discredit and disad- 
vantage of this vast Republic, may try to believe 
the nonsense that the Secession was caused by our 
High Tariff. But the South neither believes nor says 
It. la poi at of fact we never had a Tariff so nearly ap- 
proaching Free l'rade, as that wbicb existed when 
the War began. Again, it was by means of the Se- 
cession, and the consequent withdrawal of Southern 
Members of Congress, that we were able to get the 
High Tariff. And, again, we needed the High Tariff 
to supply Government with means to overcome the 
Seces=ijD. Iu a word, we must have a War Tariff. 
Another, and no less fake and nonsensical excuse lor 
the Secession is, that it was provoked by the North's 
violations of Pro-Slavery laws. The Democratic 
Party was certainly not guilty of such violations; 
and the reason why the Radical Aholitionuts would 
not join the Republican Party was, that it 
persisted in its Pro-Slavery interpretation of the 
Constitution, and in enforcing all the infernal Pro- 
Slavery legislation. _ Of all our Presidents, no one 
ever entered upon his office with so eager and earnest 
promises as did Mr. Lincoln, (see his Inaugural and 
elsewhere,) to execute aga nst innocent and holy 
Freedom all laws, either inside or outside of the 
Constitution, made to serve bloody and abominable 
Slavery. Another, and by far the most popular and 
generally credited excuse for the Rebellion i-, that 
the South was driven to it by the successful attempts 
of tne Anti-Slavery men iu turning the American 
mind against Slavery. When I was quite a young 
man we agitated the question in this State of the 
suppression of Lotteries; and we succeeded; and got 
them prohibited in the organic law. I admit it was 
right for the Pro-Lottery men to hold the Anti- 
Lottery men I responsible for that change in 
public sentiment. But I do not admit that had 
the Pro-Lottery men resorted to arms, it would have 
been right to hold the Anti-Lottery men 
responsible for that resort. It would however 
have been as right for them to do so, as it is 
for the Pro-Slavery men to lay the blame of their 
own recourse to arms on the men whose only crime 
is the impressions, which their discussions of Slavery 
had made on the public mind. If people have a sys- 
tem or an institution which cannot withstand argu- 
ment, be it Slavery orLotteries, or even Protestant- 
ism or Catholicism, let them hasten to exchange it 
for one that can. Above ail, let them not get so 
far back into the Dark Ages as to return argument 
■with lead and steel; the utterances of the soul with 
the death of the body. 

No, this is a purely Pro-Slavery Rebellion. It 
was begun for the sole purpose of ridding Slavery of 
dangers and securing to it new advantages : and one 



of the firBt steps in it was to eternize the abomina- 
tion by making it the corner-stone of the new Gov- 
ernment. Xot any of the Free States have ever fa- 
vored the Rebellion: but from the first all of them 
have been banded against it. Eleven of the Slave 
States embarked in it: and the great reason why the 
remaining four did not is that in large sections of 
each of them the Pro-Slavery interest and spirit are 
slight, because of the small proportion which the 
slaves bear to the whole population. I added, in 
respect to one of these four States, Kentucky, that 
no other of all the Slave States has been so 
effectively in our way as she, with her hostile 
politics more damaging than eveu her hostile arms. 
In another of the four, Missouri, we have had to 
fight bloodier battles than in Kentucky. In another, 
Maryland, the rebel influence has been peculiarly 
perilous to us, because peculiarly disingenuous and 
sly. No other two States in the nation have psr- 
iled our cause so much as Maryland and Kentucky. 
The other of these four States, Delaware, is too 
small in both territory and population to be of much 
account. Could its Southern ball* have had its way, 
Delaware too woold have jo.ned the Secession. All 
four of them would have joined it but for their dread 
of Union troops. 

I said that Slavery might be put away and our na- 
tion be not saved. If it be not put away in the spi- 
rit of penitence; if our hard rational heart — our 
heart of injustice and oppression — shall survive 
Slavery; then will tha nation remain unsaved, and 
evils scarcely less or perhaps even greater than this 
Rebellion may soon break out to prove that it is un- 
saved. The putting away of Slavery iu the spirit 
and for the pu pose in which and for which the Pres- 
ident's Proclamatiou would put it away, is good aa 
far as it goes. But to put it away simply in this spi- 
rit and simply for this purpose would fall very tar 
short of saving the nation. If we pu - it away in the 
spirit of selfishness and merely to s ive ourselves, and 
our heart be still unbroken by a sense of our crimes 
against the black man, we may go on to become a great- 
er criminal and marauder than ever, and be therefore 
further from nat.ooal Balvation than ever. In its 
characteristic greed of territory and characteristic 
overweening confidence in its strength, our impeni- 
tent nation might be left to un.ertake wars of con- 
quest and plunder against every nation witnin its 
reach. Such or any other flagrantly iniquitous un- 
dertaking on its part would not begin i r s ruin, tut 
would rather demonstrate and deepen its previous 
ruin. A cation no less than an individual given up 
to work injustice was long before ruined. Iu this 
connection let me say that the first victim of injus- 
tice is always he who perpetrates it. Moreover, 
whilst the injury it does to him against whom it is 
directed, may be hut outward and superficial and 
easily cured,"thit which it does to him from whom 
it proceeds is inward and radical, and but too gene- 
rally incurable 

I "referred to the speedy termination of American 
Slaverr. Would that it* might have been the blood 
less termination which the handful of Abolitionists 
labored lor during thirty years. Bat they were not 
listened to. No age listens to its prophets. Hence 
Slavery is going out in blood. And one of the proofs 
that it is going out under God's own hand and in 
God's own way — the way not that He would have 
chosen, but which our impenitence compelled Him to 
take — is, that tPis is net the blood of the slave, 
but of his common oppressors, the w: kes of tho 
North and the whiles of the South. When 
shall this blood cease to flow ? Perhaps not 
until these oppressors have repented. And not 
very improbable" is it that ere lung English blood 
will come to flow with it — the blood of that England, 
who has so loi,g been enriching herself out of the 



6 



Unpaid toil of the Slave— of that England once so 
conspicuously and honorably opposed to Slavery, 
but now, alas, through her influential men, in such 
guilty and shameless sympathy with it ! From the 
hour when, in the Trent case, England, not allowing 
even one moment for negotiation or explanation, 
virtually declared war against hand-tied America, 
from that hour to the present American hatred of 
England has been growing wider and deeper. Every 
arrival from England, freighted as it is with fresh 
evidences of England's growing hatred of us, 
increases our hatred of her. Things look more 
and more as if God's time had at last come 
for puijishiug those nations, which have been 
the chief reapers of the blood-stained harvests 
of American Slavery. Let impenitent England see 
to it, that her sympathy with Slavery does not result in 
the dismemberment other Empire. And, let France, 
too, who also lias interests on this side of the Atlan- 
tic, and who is insanely bent on extending them, 
begin to calculate the possible consequences to her- 
self of her takiug sides with a Pro-Slavery Rebel- 
lion. England and France, especially England, are 
already sutfeung greatly from the effect of this Re- 
bellion on their manufactures. But far more may 
they yet have to sutler in consequence of their guilty 
attitude toward it. 

Let me not be understood to do injust'ce to the 
English people. They love justice. It is their con- 
trolling leaders who do not. It is these, and not the 
people, who are in sympathy with Slavery and the 
South. The people are with Freedom and the North. 
One of the most beautitul and touching things in our 
day is the patience with which the starving English 
operatives bear the sufferings, which this Rebel- 
lion has brought upon them. They tell us that they 
would not have them terminated by wrong to 
the slave; and that they are willing to suffer on, if 
only the slave can be made free. Sublime conduct ! 
Would we Americans, it bi ought into such circum- 
stances, be found capable of it ? 

To return to the point whence I set out. Will this 
nation be saved? Will she consent to the cost of her 
salvation? In other words, will she give up her 
Pro-Slavery heart in exchange for a heart of pity 
and love and j astice for the victims of her oppres- 
sion? I much fear she will not. She would not do 
so in the day when she prospered iu her oppression. 
She has not done so in this dark night wnen she is 
suffering the penalties of that oppression. The 
Church is here and there beginning to denounce Sla- 
very. But scarcely auywhare has she btgun to 
confess her own guilty share in it. A selt-justify- 
ing spirit in regard to Slavery still prevails m both 
the political Parties: and the prets of the Demo- 
cratic Party is still wicked and shameless enough to 
make arguments in proof of the economical and po- 
litical advantages of upholding Slavery." Half the 
voters in the Free States are ready to-day to vote 
lor a Peace on the basis of "Pro-Slavery compro- 
mises. And not a very small proportion of our re- 
cently elected Governors would be glad to have the 
North succumb to the South and purchase Peace by 
conseniing to such changes in tlie Constitution, as 
would favor the extension and perpetuity of Sla- 
very. In the light of such facts may we not well 
fear that our country is lost? 

Another illustration of the deep, and perhaps des- 
perate, debauchment of our country by Slavery is 
that for thirty years ''Abolitionist' has been "the 
most odious name in it. Chui ch members have been 
quick to disown it. Politicians have studied to 
show their loathing of it iu every possible way, and 
to every possible degree. Geu. Wadswortu (all 
honor to him !) is one of the very few of our eminent 
men who dare to welcome and wear the name. And 
he does this even when iu nomination for a high 



office. But the name was fatal to him. He was 
highly qualified for the office. He was wise, prac- 
tical, and just. His generous use of his large estate 
had contributed to make him popular. His having 
gone into the army,. with his 6ons and son-in-law, 
and bravely and freely exposed liis person in battle, 
had added greatly to his popularity. But, alas ! ae 
was an Abolitionist — and therefore could not be 
elected! He would have been by the largest major- 
ity ever known in the State, had all voted for him 
who refused to do so because he was an Abolition- 
ist, and also all, who voted for his opponeut because 
bis opponent was an Anti-Abolitionist. 

socially, as well as ecclesiastically and politically, 
"Abolitionist" is a disadvantageous, shunned and 
abhorred name. Even now, after all that the Re- 
bellion has dons to redeem the name from its ddious- 
ness, the man who would get into what is called 
" good society," had better be adebaucheeor drunk- 
ard — nay, both — than an Abolitionist. I very well 
remember being told by that keen observer of men 
and things, Edmund Quincy, when walking the 
streets of Boston with him, more than twenty years 
ago, that the great objection of his friends to his 
being an Abolitionist was that the thing is so vulgar. 
The Abolitionists w T ere nearly all plain and natural 
people — and therefore vulgar in the eyes of fashiona- 
ble and conventional people. Moreover, their having 
identified themselves with a degraded and cast-off race 
made them intensely vulgar iu such eyes. Emphati- 
cally true is it that at West Point one could not 
formerly (however it may be now) be a gentle- 
man and yet an Abolitionist. Hence an Abolition- 
ist in that School was well nigh as scarce " as a wolf 
in England or a toad in Ireland." What folly to 
expect that officers educated to associate all that 
is honorable and gentlemanly with Slavery, and 
the reverse oi this with Anti-Slavery, should put 
their wuole heart into an earnest resistance to a Pro- 
Slavery Rebellion ! For my part, I think that our 
West Point officers, considering what a Pro-Slavery 
education the country chose for them, have done 
better than we had a right to expect. It is true 
that, when the Rebellion broke out, many of them 
paid us for that education by entering the Southern 
army, aud that many who remained at the North 
paid us for it by sympathizing with the South. But 
it is also true that many of the graduates of West 
Point are among the most faithful and able officers 
in the Nji them army. What is quite noteworthy 
in this connection is that the South, in ruuuing 
through the vocabulary of bad names for one with 
which most effectually to stigmatize and sting the 
Northern army, has finally lighted on Abolitionist. 
She i alls it the "Abolitionist Army " — aud this, too, 
notwithstanding she must know what dangerous 
thoughts the name cannot fail to put into the heads 
of her slaves. But she could not forego the oppor- 
tunity — she could not resist the temptation — to mor- 
tify and disgrace us. 

I spoke of " good society." Being an Abolition- 
ist — bred one and born one — it is not supposable that I 
ever was in it. To get now aud then iuto its sub- 
urbs or immediate surroundings would be as much 
as I could reasonably expect. The thing itself 
would be ever beyond my reach. I have said this 
much of myself to follow it with the remark, that 
seldom in my approaches to "good society " do I 
fail to witness such loathings of the Abolitionists 
and the negroes, and therein tuch insensibility to 
the claims of decency aud justice, huinaniy and re- 
ligion, as excite afresh my apprehension that Slavery 
has debauched and debased the country beyoud a 
reasonable hope of its recovery. 

The one thing which this nation needs to do is to 
make "Abolitionist" the moBt popular name in it 
— to make it as attractive as it is now repulsive, 



For nothing short of this will express her adequate 
repentance for her stupendous crime of having 
held, during her national existence, fifteen to twenty 
millions of immortal beings in Slavery. Will the 
nation be brought to do this honor— this merited 
honor— to that hated name ? Will her Seymours 
and Rynders, her Van Burens, and Bennetts, and 
Woods ever be found singing Garrison's sublime 
song: 

" I am an Abolitionist— I glory in the name ?"» 
I fear she will have to wait for their children, if 
not indeed for their children's children, to sing these 
brave words. 

How great the change— ere the name of Aboli- 
tionist shall become thus popular ! Ere it become t-o 
the negro must cease to be driven from the public 
conveyance, and from the school, and church, and 
cemetery. Ere it become so there roust be tears of 
penitence over his wrongs, instead of the heartless 
laughter over his sorrows and helplessness, and the 
fiendish shouts of exultation over bis crushed m u - 
hood. I repeat;, bow great the change! And yet 
until this change the nation cannot be saved. For, 
until this chauge, God will continue to. be at war 
with her. And every nation, as well as every indi- 
vidual, with whom God is at war, is lost. allpreseLt, 
and seeming, and superficial appearances to the coj- 
trary notwithstanding — lost until repentance shall 
come; and lost forever, if it shall never come. 

Great, indeed, must be the change ere " Abolition- 
ist" shall become to honored a name! Before that 
change can take place, our question: " What shall 
we do with the blacks 1" will be regarded as no less 
absurd than would be their question: " What shall 
we do with the whites 1" Before that change, they 
will be left as free as any other race to go where 
they will, or stay where they will. Their equal 
rights will be recognized; and manhood will be held 
to be as sacred and inviolable in them as in others. 
Emancipation will doubtless drain the Free States 
and Canada ol a large share of their blacks. But 
this will be solely because Emancipation falls in 
with nature, and opens an invitiog way South to a 
people who, in violation of nature, were dragged to 
the ungemal North. 

1 have glanced at this spirit of caste, which inces- 
santly clamors for the expatriation of the black3. 
That our rulers, aud our chief rulers too. should at 
any time be guilty of ministering to this mean and 
murderous spirit is verv sad. That they should 
fiud leisure aud have the heart to do bo at such a 
time as this— a time when millions of Re! ela are at 
the throat of the nation— is indeed deeply discourag- 
ing. Emphatically poor employment to be getting 
out of the country at such a time the only entirely 
loyal eement iu its whole population. But come 
what will of country, the one great prejudice of our 
people must be gratified. Let the nation perish ! 
but let not hatred of the negro perish ! 

To return for a moment to this question: " What 
shall we do with the blacks?" Although I would 
have this insulting question, which every day comes 
welling up out of our Pro-Slavery hearts, die away 
forever, I nevertheless would have the whole land 
ring with the question: " What shall we do for tfle 
blacks?" And this reasonable and pertinent ques- 
tion I would have both the North and South answer 
by doing for these outraged ones, in addition to giv- 
ing them freedom, education, and wages, everything 
which penitence and pity, love and justice can sug- 
gest. To do with the blacks is to insult, cheapen, 
aud degrade them, while to do for men as we have 
opportunity is a duty toward the highest as well as 
the lowest, and dishonoring to neither. 

I pass on to ask what we shall do for the South. 
For her own sake, as well as for ours and the 
world's sake, we must defeat her. To let her Rebel- 



lion triumph, and to let her come up into the pirati- 
cal nation 'she purposes to be, would be to let her 
become as unhappy as she is guilty. To save her — 
to save her from herself — we must be just and kind 
to her — as we shall be if we bear in mind how 
largely responsible the whole nation is for the Rebel- 
lion. The South rebelled because the nation began 
to show signs of not letting tne slaveholders go 
where they would with their slaves. Now, was not 
a part of the guilt of the Rebellion fairly chargeable 
on the nation, which had practically (whether with 
or against the Constitution is immaterial to the ar- 
gument) recognized the Southern laborers to be 
property, and therefore subject to removal as well 
as to the other liabilities of property ? Whoever 
doubts the nation's having done so, should read 
Jay's " View of the action of the Federal Govern- 
ment in behalf of Slavery," and Giddings's " Exiles 
ot Florida." As we had done so much to counte- 
nance and educate the South in her_ crime— her 
crime of crimes — and as we were still impenitently 
Pro-Slavery— was it not, to say the least, very un- 
gracious in us to threaten to restrict her commission 
of it ? 

We shall, I trust, take her slaves out of the 
hands of the South. But that will be a com- 
paratively easv thing. That will be done by our 
superior physical p )wer. An infinitely more diffi- 
cult work for us will be to take the spirit of slave- 
holding out of her heart. That we can do only by 
a superior moral power — only by first taking it 
out of our own heart. Our repentance of slave- 
holding will be mighty to work her repentance of it. 
It is of i en said that the North and the South have 
become so unlike each other, as never to be able to 
live together again under the same Government. 
But common repentance of a great common sin goes 
very far to make the penitents resemble each other. 
They are alike before the repentance. They are 
more alike after it. There will no longer be ground 
lor complaining of a lack of homogeneousness in the 
Americans after the North and South shall have re- 
pented of their common wickedness asainst the 
black man. True yoke-fellows after that will they 
be in the work of"lifting up and enlightening the 
large black element and the larger and scarcely less 
barbarous white element in her population. The 
North will send down thousands of laborers in this 
blessed work; and the South will welcome them. 
Ungrudged and unlimited moneys and means will 
the North put into Southern hand3 to be used in a 
cause that will then be equally dear to both North 
and South. 

I said that for our own sake we must defeat the 
nefarious purpose of the South to rob us of our coun- 
trv. To the heart of the patriot all is lost when 
country is lost. When our nation shall be divided 
into two nations — nay, into four or five, as it will 
soon be, should the South succeed — we shall have 
no nation left ; and, on this side df the grave, no 
home left. 

And I said that for the world's sake we must 
defeat the South. For the world's sake we must 
not suffer this nascent piratical nation to pass its 
infancy. For the world's sake we must not suffer 
such a scourge as it would be to the world — such a 
kostis humani generis — to grow up in America. 
Hence, for the world's sake, we must put down this 
Pro-Slavery Rebellion, and purge the American land 
of Slavery, and the American heart of the spirit of 
Slaveholding. When all this shall be done, how 
rapidly will the redundant and the discontented 
populations of other nations be attracted to happy 
homes in this ! And then the immigrant, no longer 
as now a subject, from the day he lands, of the per- 
verting and debasing appliances of a Pro-Slavery 
Party, will immediately come under iaflueucea as 



purifying and expanding as the present influences 
upon "immigrants are corrupting and shriveling. I 
add, that when all this shall be done, there will 
very soon be no Slavery left in any part of Christen- 
dom. I was happy, but not surprised, to learn that 
the price of slaves declined in Cuba as soon as 
the news of the President's Proclamation reached 
the island. She would be able to maintain her 
Slavery scarcely a year after ours had ceased. 
Brazil has lony been shaping herself to get rid of 
Slavery. She will accelerate her jsteps to this end 
when "her Slavery shall be deprived of the coun- 
tenance given to it bv American Slavery. 

And then when America shall be sorrow-stricken 
for having chained and lashed, and bought and sold 
and imbruted so many millions of innocent men and 
women; and when her statesmen shall be ashamed 
of every word tbey had spoken for Slavery, and be 
ready to wash out with their tears every word they 
had written for it; then will our Free Institutions, 
hitherto obscured by the black cloud of Slavery, and 
ineffably disgraced by an unnatural alliance with 
their veriest opposite and their deadliest enemy, 
shine out as the Sun, and fast become the desire of 
the whole earth. Precious Institutions ! Theyshall 
yet bless the whole earth, slaveholders and all other 
tyrants to the contrary notwithstanding. Precious 
Institutions! I repeat. The masses of men can 
never rise under any other political institutions than 
those which are Republican or Democratic. 

And far more than this. When America shall 
have penitently put away Slavery, and not only 
her statesmen shall be desply and painfully ashamed 
of having contributed to uphold it, but her con- 
science-convicted ecclesiastics shall at last be sensi- 
ble of their blood-guiltiness— then will Curistlanity 
be not only relieved of American misrepresentation, 
but powerfully commended to the nations by regen- 
erated America. It is vain to expect the prevalence 
of Christianity so long as the nations shall continue 
in her name to trample upon human rights. The 
true Christianity does, in distinction from the coun- 
terfeit, honor God's rights through the honoring of 
man's rights. Herein is the great difference between 
Heathenism and Christianity. The one sacrifices 
men to God, while the other ma^es caring for men 
the most acceptable worship of God. The current 
Christianity is but too generally only a little better 
than a modified Heathenism. But tse blotting out 
of Slavery iu all Christendom will go far toward 
lifting up'the current to the standard of the true 
Christianity. 



I must close. We see in the light of what has! 
been said, that our trast to put down the Rebellion 
and so save the nation, must not be alone in our su- 
perior material forces. It must be alao in justice, 
and in the God of justice — which however it cannot 
be unless we become just. It is not true, as Napoleon 
Baid it was— that God is on the side of the strongest 
battalions. He is ever on the side of justice, be it the 
strongest or the weakest batta ions that may happen 
to be there. It has ever been true and it ever will 
ce, that " the nation that will not serve Him shall 
perish." Many as are our people, great as are our 
riche3 and resources, and unequaled our invention 
and skill, we too shall perish if we fall not in with 
the Divine laws. But we will fall in with them— 
will we not 1 And if we will, then how grand and 
blessed our future ! In that future our condition will 
in all respects rise up into correspondence with our 
matchless natural advantages. In that future there 
will be no oppression of the black man, no oppres- 
sion of the red man, and no oppression of any man. 
Then equal justice to all. Then the North and the 
South, the East and the West re-linked together for- 
ever and ever. Then from sea to sea all brothers. 
Then a nation practically and cordially recognizing 
all races and all nations to be of one brotherhood. 
Then a nation with Christ for the leader of its peo- 
ple and Christ for the leader of its leaders. 

Will Pro-Slavery priests and Pro-Slavery poli- 
ticians say that I have here sketched but a Utopia, 
hut an impracticable ideal perfection; and that I 
have sought to pleas a my hearers with a mere 
fancy? We will reply, that if they and all who 
with them breathe the contemptuous spirit of caste, 
and deride the doctrine of the universal brother- 
hood, will but 6tand aside and no longer pour out 
their malign and withering influence on mankind, 
this ideal will be rapidly translated into the actual, 
and this fancy rapidly become a reality. 

The following Resolution, which Mr. Smith offered 
at the beginning of his Speech, was, with the excep- 
tion of a solitary negative, adopted unanimously at 
its close by the thousands who filled to its utmost 
capacity the spacious Hall in the Cooper Institute: 

Whereas, It is no less true of a nation than of an indi- 
vidual, that to be just is to be saved, aud to be unjust ^is to be 
lost ; and , . , . . . 

Whereas, Among all the greatest violations of justice, 
Slavery is pre-eminent. 

Resolved, therefore, that whatever the things which need 
to be doDe by this nation in order to be saved, the penitent 
putting away of Slavery must not be left undone. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




